


Unfuck the World

by uchihag



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Slow Burn, enemies-to-lovers that turns into mutual pining REAL QUICK lmao, gays & girls - this is gonna be at least 70k so buckle in, i have not written fiction in so long rip, if ‘be gay do crime’ was a fic, it’d be this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:00:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21868657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uchihag/pseuds/uchihag
Summary: One last summer party, one harmless hookup between strangers, two worlds colliding.Neither Naruto (student body president) or Sasuke (the university’s mysterious new transfer student) have a clue how quickly this one casual hookup will throw their lives into utter chaos.And how could they possibly guess they’d meet again so soon — this time on opposite sides of a devastating feud between a dying clan and the government that decimated it?
Relationships: Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 20
Kudos: 91





	Unfuck the World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ story title: “unfucktheworld” by angel olsen  
> \+ chapter title: “slow dance” by matthew dickman

_So this is what I get for being a good friend, huh._

For the life of him, Sasuke Uchiha can’t understand how he‘s ended up in this situation yet again. Slightly hammered on a Saturday night, empty red plastic cup in hand, and his eardrums being pounded numb by the blaring party music.

The EDM dance track transitions to a low-tempo rap song that’s a touch kinder to his ears, so Sasuke takes this as his cue to finally get up and do.... something. Step outside for some air, refill his drink, or go to the bathroom, it doesn’t really matter what. Pretty much anything beats sitting here on the couch like some barnacle callously left for dead by his so-called friends — even if that’s exactly what he is.

About an hour and a half into the crowded fraternity house party, their little crew started splintering off, much to Sasuke’s dismay. Karin, after splitting a molly with him, is currently on the dance floor grinding the seams out of some frat bro’s pretty girlfriend. Suigetsu’s probably hitting on his tech program crush, Kankuro, in a dark corner somewhere. Jūgo, like always, stayed with him for longest time out of the three, sipping at his drink and people-watching with Sasuke for another thirty minutes before heading home to rest up for his early morning shift at the small veterinary clinic across town.

Truthfully though, despite being unjustly abandoned, Sasuke is finding it hard to seriously be upset — especially now that the ecstasy has kicked in properly. In fact, he can’t feel much of anything but a happy bubbling warmth for his stupid, annoying, inconsiderate, and beautiful, beautiful friends.

His body hums with a soft, aimless eagerness that feels nice to float on for now. Sasuke weaves through the writhing mass of beer-pongers and dancing sweaty bodies, wobbling a little on the way. He passes Karin, who winks at him before shimmying up frat-bro-girlfriend’s body to pick up the shot glass sitting in her cleavage by the mouth and throw it back in one fluid motion. Not surprising in the least, considering the loud, bespectacled redhead is their crew’s #1 pantydropper & casual hook-up heavyweight. Sasuke acknowledges her wink with an amused eye roll before turning the corner—

And that’s when he sees him.

The sunny blonde who’s been throwing him furtive, lingering glances all night with the hint of a blush cresting his cheeks. Except this time around, Sasuke doesn’t quite _see_ the guy so much as he does barrel into him in a spectacular confusion of floundering limbs, airborne drinks, and fiercely muttered expletives.

“Fuck, I — oh my god, are you alright? I’m so sorry!”, the blond splutters profusely. “That was totally my fault, are you okay?”

The room spins and Sasuke groans. “Shit.”

“Here, let me help you up!”

Still trying to get his bearings, Sasuke has little choice but to grudgingly take the hand that’s offered to him, and before he can blink, the blond has him back on his feet again — too fast. He teeters a bit before finding his center of gravity. His elbow is ringing with pain, but in a distant way that’s not really bothering him too much at the moment, and he registers a sticky-sweet wetness all over his body. And something smells like... pennies? He catches the faint smell of copper in the air.

Noting Sasuke’s dizziness, Blondie steps into his space a little and waves a nervous hand in front of him. A nervous hand slicked in what looks like — _blood?_

“Hey, are you with me? What year is it? Who’s our hokage? Hello??”

The splash of bright red shocks Sasuke back to his senses & his eyes start to follow the motion of the waving bloodied hand, even though it makes his stomach lurch. Ignoring the silly questions, he reaches out to grab the guy’s flailing wrist and turn it backwards to face him.

“Hey, asshole. You’re bleeding.”

Blondie stares dumbly at his crimson-stained palm, mouth open. Then he meets Sasuke’s stormy gaze and winces in a manner that just reeks of guilt.

“Um, I don’t think this is my blood.”

Oh.

Sasuke moves to mirror the blonde’s position, looking down at his own hands in quiet wonder. It’s only now that the sharp stinging pain makes itself known to him. Clearly, the guy must’ve been holding a few bottles of liquor when they crashed into each other because the skin of his palms is littered with splinters of broken green glass in an assortment of sizes. Blood oozes steadily from some of the bigger shards, which are more deeply embedded into his flesh.

Frowning, he looks back up to find the blonde’s face frozen in a splotchy mask of mortification, concern, and pure panic. And if the quivering of his bottom lip is anything to go by, he’s seen the extent of the damage to Sasuke’s hands too.

“Holy shit, this is bad... this is so fucking bad! I’m sorry! I am so so so so SO sorry, I’m such an idiot.“

Sasuke sighs. At witnessing the guy’s immediately remorseful hysteria, the last of any true anger he’s feeling drains from him now to be replaced only by mild discomfort and an itchy exasperation.

“Dude, it’s... it’s fine,” he mutters reluctantly, brooding down at his hands again. “I just need to—“

“No, it’s _not_ fine. Your hands are all torn up, and _I_ did that!” Blondie squawks, sounding like he’s only a few sharp breaths away from hyperventilating. Sasuke takes in the guy’s anguish in disbelief, marveling at the fact that somehow, he’s ended up comforting the klutz who maimed him. Un-fucking-believable.

“Look, you’re not gonna cry, are you? _I’m_ the one bleeding here, remember.”

“Oh, um... right.” The guy flushes pink now in the low light, making a visible effort to get himself under control. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

“Sorry. Wait, fuck! I didn’t mean to—“ the blonde takes a deep breath, tries again. “Listen, there’s a first aid kit downstairs. If you let me, I can patch you up — or at least get the bleeding to stop.”

Sasuke sighs, yet again. The night suddenly feels long and unending, and he wishes he was already back home. Tucked warmly into bed and snuggled up with his cats, ready to drop off into a deliciously deep slumber. Instead, the cuts and scrapes on his palms scream for attention, the pain intensified by their contact with the spilled liquor. Before Sasuke can even open his mouth to respond, he’s stopped short.

“Please just... let me fix this,” Blondie says, deflating pathetically.

* * *

They’re in the basement fifteen minutes later, each sitting criss-cross applesauce on top of the washer and dryer, first aid kit spread open beside them and the other boy gingerly cradling Sasuke’s hand in his own two as he pulls out bits of glass with a tweezer.

“Does that hurt?”

“No.”

“Good. What about this?”

“Nope.”

“Alright, then you shouldn’t feel this very much either.”

“Ouch—“

“Sorry!”

“Stop _saying_ that.”

This time, it’s the blonde’s turn to sigh.

“I can’t help it,” he mutters sheepishly, peering up at Sasuke.

Sasuke thinks there’s probably something unsanitary about how close the guy’s face is to his palm, but all concerns of cleanliness (or the lack thereof) are coolly blown from his mind when those deep blue eyes turn on him. In fact, his mind is abruptly evicted of any coherent thought for quite a few moments.

In the soft whitish glow of lamplight, Sasuke stares back at him calmly, unabashed and unblinking. Drinking in the features he couldn’t make out before in the dim hallway where they’d collided, he can see now how attractive the blonde is. How long and thick his lashes are up close. The soft, full, rosy lips that part slightly as if he's just on the cusp something. And on the sides of his cheeks, there are the faintest little jagged scars, only noticeable in this slant of light. Pain slowly forgotten, Sasuke can’t help but wonder how the night might have gone instead if he’d returned those coy little glances from earlier, maybe even approached him and said something. He can’t help but wonder if the guy’s thinking about the same thing.

It’s Blondie who breaks eye contact first, exhaling shakily as he snaps his attention back down to his work. His hands tremble slightly and Sasuke decides, at least for the moment, that he finds the guy’s nervousness very endearing. And he kind of wants to see more of it.

“You’re pretty good at this,” he offers quietly.

“I’ve got some experience,” his assailant replies vaguely, biting his bottom lip in focus.

“So this is your go-to move for picking up guys at parties, then?”

“Oh, screw you,” The blonde retorts in a low, embarrassed chuckle. “Wait — who said I was trying to pick you up, anyway?”

”Uh, you did when you were making googly eyes at me from across the room all night.”

“I was _not_ making googly eyes at you!”

“Fine, heart eyes then.”

“Stop—!”

“So you _weren’t_ trying to seduce me earlier?”

“...No,” he murmurs, hesitant, in a shy voice that’s not convincing either of them. It does, however, bring a small smile to Sasuke’s lips.

“Hm. Well, that’s too bad,” Sasuke quips, nonchalant. “Because it was kind of working.”

“It was?” Blondie blurts out before he can stop himself, cobalt blue eyes rushing up to meet Sasuke’s dark ones in a look that’s so blatantly suffused with hope that it’s impossible to keep a straight face.

Sasuke erupts into soft laughter, making the other boy duck his head back down to hide his pinkening cheeks. _This is too easy_ , Sasuke thinks to himself. The ecstasy and alcohol have yet to wear off because everything about this moment glows contentedly. It makes him feel relaxed, and in turn, a little bolder and more playful than he might’ve been otherwise.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re kind of a dick?” Blondie mumbles, sounding rather defeated.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re kind of cute?”

Their eyes meet once again and the air between them feels charged with something that neither of them reaches out to touch just yet. Sasuke can see the guy’s blush deepen even further, and the sight sparks a responding flare in his chest that makes him want to draw nearer.

“O-okay, it’s all out!” the blonde stammers, dropping Sasuke’s hands as if they‘re made of hot coals.

Sasuke looks down to see that his palms have now been neatly evacuated of every single last shard, all of them collected nearby in a pile of sharp green glassy bits.

“Thanks.”

“Please don’t thank me,” the blonde insists, looking at everything but him. “Besides, I still have to clean up and bandage all these cuts.”

“Right.”

“This might sting a bit.”

“Okay.”

Blondie mists a generous layer of antimicrobial spray over both of Sasuke’s palms and then pats them dry with a square of gauze he pulls out of a fresh packet. He’s wearing light blue medical gloves, and his hands work in confident, steady motions. He’s _really_ good at this. After a while, Sasuke notices that the guy’s still avoiding his gaze.

“Alright,” Blondie starts, grabbing a small tube. “So what I’m doing now is applying some antibiotic ointment before I wrap it, just to make sure nothing gets infected. It’s medicated, so it‘ll help with the pain too. The little cuts should heal up just fine by themselves, but you should keep an eye on some of the deeper ones. If they’re still bleeding in 24 hours or don’t look like they’re starting to close up, then you might need stitches.”

“Whatever you say, doc.”

Blondie snorts and rolls his eyes.

Sasuke can feel himself staring and knows that he should probably stop, but then where else is he supposed to look instead? Or at least that sounds like a better excuse to keep gawking like an idiot than _‘but he’s pretty’._ He watches the blonde wind the last length of gauze around his left hand and fasten it at the wrist.

“All done,” Blondie finishes, finally looking back up at him. “And I know you don’t want me to say it, but I’m still s—“

“What’s your name?” Sasuke asks, cutting him off before he can apologize yet again.

“It’s Naruto.”

“Naruto... like the fish stuff?”

“Like the fish stuff.”

“Well, _Naruto_ — I’m wet.”

“I—you’re— _what_?!” the guy splutters, blushing hotly, his eyes wide as saucers.

“My clothes...?” Sasuke clarifies, doing his best not to crack a mocking grin.

“Ugh, you did that on purpose!” Naruto glowers, pouting. Sasuke kind of wants to kiss him right then. Only a little though.

“I’m sorry,” he smiles, unable to hold it back. “But I really am fully soaked right now. It's gross. And besides—” Sasuke sniffs his hoodie, frowning “—I’m pretty sure this is _your_ alcohol all over me.”

Naruto seems reluctant to accept his apology at first, but then he replies, “Whatever. Stay here and I’ll get you something to change into... asshole.”

“I’ll just go with you,” Sasuke shrugs, following Naruto’s lead. “My friends are up there anyway.”

So they climb the stairs together and wind through the throng of inebriated partygoers. There are a few times when the blonde looks back at him shyly, as if to make sure Sasuke is still with him (or hasn’t been trampled by the crowd), and in those moments, there’s a curious look reaching out at Sasuke from those blue eyes that he can’t quite decipher. But he likes that it’s there anyway — likes how being the center of Naruto’s focus makes him feel interesting and more desirable somehow. They make it to the third floor of the frat house and Naruto turns into a room two doors down the dark hall.

He makes a beeline for the closet and flips on the light. Seeing that it’s a sizeable walk-in, Sasuke enters and leans against the door frame while Naruto rummages through what looks like a landfill of fabric. Wheeling around, Naruto nearly smacks into Sasuke all over again, yelping as if he didn’t expect him to be so close.

“You know,” Sasuke remarks, rolling his eyes. “There are easier ways to get on top of me than knocking me over.”

“ _Asshole!_ ”

Naruto shoves the clothing into his chest and spins back around to the closet to pick out something for himself. Sasuke inspects the outfit he’s been given. It’s a grey patterned sweater and black basketball shorts. Him and Naruto look to be roughly the same size, so the clothes should fit okay. Thankfully, they smell pretty clean for the most part — even though there is a lingering whiff of the kind of men’s body spray that’s sold in obnoxiously masculine packaging and has commercials of scantily clad women fawning over some freakishly muscled Chad-type. All in all, it’s a very on-brand fragrance to come across in a frat house, and certainly not the most offensive by far. Besides, the way his own sticky clothing clings to his skin is now utterly unbearable.

“Thanks,” he tosses out, just before slipping out of his hoodie and into the sweater.

“Hey!“ Naruto squeals, slapping a hand over his eyes, “Give a guy some warning next time!”

“Next time?” Sasuke scoffs, “For someone who allegedly _isn’t_ trying to get into my pants, you seem pretty confident about the way this night is going.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Seeing as he caught some of the spill as well, Naruto grabs some fresh clothing for himself.

He says something else, but it’s muffled by the collared button-down he’s taking off. Muffled, but audible enough that Sasuke can just barely make out the words — _you’re the one who’s trying to seduce somebody, jerk._ Grinning, he takes the opportunity of Naruto’s head being covered to stumble out of his jeans and into the basketball shorts. Everything seems to fit well enough. Fully dressed, he’s straightening up to exit the closet when Naruto lets out another muffled sound, this time a cry of distress.

“Argh — I’m stuck!”

When Sasuke turns back, he lets out a bark of laughter. Before him, a fuzzy blonde head is stretching the absolute fuck out of the neck of someone’s poor navy-colored Konoha uni sweatshirt.

“Oh, great. Now you’re making fun of me.”

Sasuke tries to catch his breath, feeling a little bad for Naruto — but mostly for the sweatshirt. “Big baby,” he teases, stepping closer. “Here, let me help. And I won’t even laugh this time.”

After a brief pause, Naruto mumbles, “It’s okay even if you do, or whatever.” His face is still hidden behind the dark fabric. “I like the way you laugh.”

 _Cute_ , Sasuke thinks, feeling his own cheeks heat the tiniest bit. He pops the shirt down with a firm tug so he can see what facial expression the blonde’s wearing. “Even when I’m laughing at you?”

Naruto’s looking down at his feet, blushing as well. “Yes, jerk.”

“Naruto?”

“What now.”

“I wasn’t _trying_ to make fun of you... that much,” Sasuke cedes amicably, his mouth curved in amusement at the blonde’s moping demeanor.

Naruto meets his gaze quickly and looks away again. “Fine... apology accepted.”

“That wasn’t an apology but alright. Thank you,” Sasuke humors him, snickering softly at the guy’s oh-so-generous forgiveness. “Are you going to keep avoiding my eyes until this party ends?”

“Maybe. And what about it?”

“Well, what if I _want_ you look at me?”

“Why?” Naruto grumbles, suspicion tainting his voice.

“Because you spent all night trying to get my attention, and now you have it.”

Naruto looks up now, his glance careful. When the clear blue eyes meet his, something inside of Sasuke’s chest swells and surges forward. He’s missed this feeling, the heady exhilaration of flirting with strangers in confined spaces and low voices.

“Your head is massive,” he grins.

“Shaddup.” Naruto yaps back at him. But he doesn’t look away this time. Now that he’s been granted permission to openly stare at the gorgeous, raven-haired boy in front of him, he seems to take full advantage. Naruto’s wide, sparkling eyes scan all over his face, pausing now and again to rest appreciatively on one feature or another before moving on. It’s that same look, the curiously smoldering one the blonde kept casting his way downstairs, before the crash.

Sasuke _really_ likes the way Naruto looks at him — especially the way that gaze flutters slowly down to settle on his mouth after a while. He shivers, despite the warmth between their bodies.

“Do you have to go back to your friends now?” Naruto asks, eyes still locked onto his lips.

And all of a sudden, the thought of going back downstairs to all that noise and sweat and booze is highly unappealing to Sasuke. The crush of bodies seems claustrophobic now, suffocating even.

A tingle starts low in his spine. “...I mean, I don’t _have_ to go anywhere—”

“Then don’t,” Naruto whispers with an unsteady boldness, stepping closer. “I mean... everything’s just so loud and crazy down there, and well... we can hang out up here for a while. Y’know... if you want.”

“Is that what _you_ want?” Sasuke quirks a brow but he doesn’t notice that his voice has dropped into a whisper too.

Or that he’s still holding onto the bottom of Naruto’s shirt.

They’re both nervous now. Downstairs, an ABBA song starts blaring from the speakers. Yeah. With the molly he took earlier making the warmth of touch more appealing, and now the weirdly bouncing sweep of the music below, it just feels like the kind of night where _something_ should happen.

“Um. I kinda just... wanna kiss you now,” Naruto confesses, his voice faltering, but only a little.

“Okay,” Sasuke shrugs, heart hammering in his ears.

“Cool. I uhhh... I don’t really do this very often... hooking up with strangers at parties, that is.”

“Neither do I.”

“And I’m still kinda drunk...”

“Me too.”

“Oh — then it cancels out, right? So basically we’re both sober, hehe. PEMDAS, y’know.”

“Naruto.”

“Or was it FOIL...?”

“I don’t think math is one of your strengths.”

“You’re probably right,” Naruto giggles, skittish. “Sorry. I think I’m stalling, but. I dunno why.”

“Then stop,” Sasuke breathes, bringing a bandaged hand up to cradle Naruto’s chin.

Naruto stops breathing.

“Okay.”

It’s not clear who moves into the kiss first, but once their lips make contact, neither of them can be bothered to care. It’s only a tender, feather-light meeting of closed mouths, but Naruto lets out a shuddering breath that washes warmly over Sasuke’s face, smelling like vodka and green apples. His lips are silken, pillowy, and just a little moist.

It’s good. A little _too_ good.

His head is spinning again, the dizziness crashing back in full force.

Sasuke pulls an inch or two away to catch his breath, suddenly feeling hot and lightheaded, as if all the blood in his body is rushing away from his brain. However, before he can properly refill his lungs, Naruto darts forward to reclaim his lips and the kiss explodes into a much hungrier, more needful thing — his tongue slips into Sasuke’s still-open mouth, and it’s warm and wet. Greedy and impatient and so, _so good_. He feels like he’s being swallowed whole — wants it, even. Naruto’s eagerness and intensity set fire to the low hum of Sasuke’s body, whipping him into a state of frenzied thirst until he releases any last shred of tension his muscles are holding to melt completely into the feverish heat of the blonde’s mouth.

Before he knows it, Sasuke is kissing back in earnest, hooking an arm around Naruto’s neck and the other around his waist, pressing their bodies flush against one another. Naruto, who by now is quivering with desire, lets out a surprised, petal-soft _“unmph”_ right into Sasuke’s mouth and circles both arms around his back. Fists curl into the fabric of Sasuke’s sweater, gripping tight at his shoulder blades. They keep kissing like that, tasting and sucking and probing, for god knows how long until Sasuke gasps sharply in response to Naruto‘s hips rocking into his without warning — once gently, and then a few more times, brazen and agonizingly slow. The friction rockets a bolt of arousal through Sasuke so forcefully that he breaks their kiss to look at Naruto in a dizzy sort of wonder.

The blonde’s confused azure eyes are polished sea glass, heavy-lidded and pupils blown wide with lust. A blotchy, uneven flush covers his face and neck, and his lips are swollen slick. Sasuke is sure he’s in a similar state. Honestly, he’d only expected for them to make out a little, and maybe get in a grope or too, but he quickly decides he’s not against taking it further than that.

“What’s wrong?” Naruto asks, breathless.

He really is devastating to look at.

“...Nothing.”

When Sasuke lowers himself into the lumpy nest of clothing on the closet floor and pulls Naruto down to lie beneath him, it’s as if they’re in a trance — bodies flowing in motion together and neither of them willing to look away. Their faces are so close that they’re breathing the same air, just passing it back and forth like a prayer, or a secret, a whispered promise kept. Each unable to do anything but stare into the other’s eyes. Then Naruto brings a hand to rest on Sasuke’s nape and tucks down to drop kisses on his neck, nipping and sucking wolfishly at the smooth, honeyed flesh.

“Fuck,” Sasuke groans, as Naruto works his way down to his collarbone.

_Has hooking up always felt this incredible?_

Seems unlikely — maybe it’s the drugs?

Just when he thinks he’s going to lose his mind to pleasure, the blonde starts rocking his pelvis again, dragging it against Sasuke’s in a way that sends his blood stampeding south to meet the stimulation. Sasuke slips his fingers into Naruto’s unruly golden locks and tugs his head back up with some force to kiss him again, and Naruto responds just as urgently. It unnerves him to feel how much he’s wanted by the boy undulating in his arms, how keenly Naruto’s body reacts to his every touch. He’s never been kissed quite like this before — with such naked desperation. As if he’s something finite and precious, or the cure to starvation. He’s never been practically inhaled by someone who devours him like they don’t know if they’ll ever eat again.

Sasuke’s brain nearly short-circuits when he feels Naruto’s unmistakeable hardness rubbing with vigor against his own quickly rising erection, the sensation made almost unbearable by the thinness of the shorts he’s wearing and the rough denim of the blonde’s jeans.

“God, I want you so fucking bad,” Naruto pants against his lips before diving back in — ravenous, insatiable.

Sasuke pulls the blonde’s leg up onto his hip for more access, grinding away with renewed fervor.

“How’s that?”

Groaning his approval, Naruto tilts his head to deepen the kiss. He runs his hands up and down Sasuke’s naked torso under the borrowed sweater before dropping them to get a firm grip on the raven’s ass, one cheek in each hand. Now this math, he can manage. They move at an increasingly frantic rhythm, and Sasuke is helplessly sucked down into him, drowning and thrusting and thrusting and drowning.

“Oh — don’t stop,” Naruto gasps, quaking beneath him.

They’re building up to a dangerous pace and Sasuke can feel his climax start to simmer and rise deep inside. He slips a hand down the front of Naruto’s jeans — _to find only skin??_ — just as a harried and all-too-familiar voice slices through the air heavy as a guillotine blade, swiftly and efficiently chopping through any last hope Sasuke may have had of achieving orgasm tonight.

“SAAASUKEEEEE!”

He freezes — it’s _Karin_.

Motherfucking Karin screeching his name at the top of her lungs like a goddamn banshee.

“SASUKE!” she yells. “Get down here right now — I need your help! Suigetsu’s on a tear and I can’t handle him on my own.”

Sasuke is going to fucking _kill_ Suigetsu. Slowly, methodically, and preferably with a blowtorch, power tools, and a unique assortment of knives within arm’s reach.

“Shit, shit, shit!” he hisses, rolling off the blonde reluctantly.

“Hey!” Naruto protests, dazed and looking thoroughly sexed up. “What the hell??”

Sasuke wants to hit something, one particular silver-haired doofus with too many teeth coming to his mind.

“I... I have to go.”

At first, Naruto only blinks at him in pure, soundless shock. Then:

“You. You’re gonna go — what like, _right now_?” He squawks, visibly frustrated. “You’ve gotta be fucking with me.”

“Apparently, that’s exactly the one thing I’m _not_ doing right now,” Sasuke bites out, getting to his feet. He tries to tuck his erection down inside his shorts with limited success.

Naruto’s chest is still heaving up and down as he gawks up at Sasuke, gobsmacked. “So you’re literally leaving like. Right now... like this is actually happening.”

“My friends need me,” Sasuke sighs.

“So does my dick!” Naruto whines, letting his head fall back in despair.

He’s still too deeply annoyed to laugh at the moment, but the corner of Sasuke’s mouth quirks up in sympathetic bemusement.

Naruto sits up and reaches out to grab his bare calf, rubbing lazy, absent-minded circles into the muscle. “Please don’t go — I’m literally about to get on my knees and beg.”

Standing as he is, the sudden image of the deliciously disheveled blonde before him pouting on his knees and looking up at him with those big horny blue eyes does the exact opposite of calming his erection — and the calf-rubbing isn’t helping either. Sasuke banishes it all from his mind as firmly as he can, raking a hand through his thick, dark waves. Smiling ruefully, he drops back down to a squat in front of the grumpy blonde.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs.

“I cannot believe my life right now. God hates me! I know he does.” Naruto reasons, incredulous.

“Well. You _are_ kinda gay.”

“Ha! Whatever, pretty boy.’” Naruto scoffs, “There is nothing heterosexual about _that_.”

He gestures at Sasuke’s stubborn boner, grinning proudly. Sasuke chuckles despite himself.

“Please please please, stay. I was so close!” Naruto wheedles shamelessly.

“Big baby. You won’t die,” Sasuke smirks, despite being just as frustrated as him. “You know what to do once I leave.”

As if on cue, Karin hollers another ear-splitting “SASUKE!”

“Welp, that’s me, Blondie.” He reaches over and ruffles the blonde’s hair apologetically. “Tug it out.”

“Wait,” he grumbles before Sasuke can straighten up for real this time.

He obeys patiently, reluctant to go.

“Can you leave _your_ dick here?”

Sasuke snorts and gives the blonde’s cheek a light, playful slap. “Good night, Naruto.”

As he’s jogging down the steps, Sasuke hears the voice trailing after him.

It cries: “WAIT, CAN I HAVE YOUR NUMBER?”

* * *

In no time, Sasuke meets up with Karin in the foyer, where Suigetsu appears intent on jumping as close as he can to the high ceiling in order to swing from the ornate brass chandelier. And if the simmering glares from the dozens of partygoers they passed to get here are any indication, their platinum-haired friend is also responsible for the broken beer pong table in the living room, slumped over and sagging due to the massive crack splitting it down the middle. Suigetsu jumps again and he almost makes it, an outstretched hand catching onto one of the chandelier’s golden loops before slipping free again.

“Dude, go the fuck home!” some thick-necked, beefy guy booms from a cluster of angry-looking faces. An even deeper voice in the back thunders, “Who do you even know here, bro?”

“Okayyy, let’s break this up before things get even uglier,” Karin mutters.

They cut through the disgruntled crowd, each grabbing Suigetsu by an arm and hauling him off towards the front door.

“Hey, let go!” Suigetsu protests, cackling wildly. “The party’s just getting started!”

“I think you’ve had enough fun for one night,” Sasuke grunts as they break out into the chill night air, detained party animal in tow.

“Enough fun for the whole semester,” Karin corrects in disgust. “Jesus Christ, Sui! What happened to you sneaking off to hook up with Kinky-ro or whatever? I thought that was the plan.”

Suigetsu pulls a face and jeers, “Kankuro? Psssh, who gives a shit about that stupid dickface?”

Over their friend’s lolling platinum head, Karin and Sasuke shoot each other a knowing glance. Suigetsu’s been absolutely lovesick over the older brunette all summer and tonight was his last shot to make something happen between them before their internship ended and Kankuro went back home to Suna. Considering that Suigetsu’s currently sloshed out of his mind and faking contempt for the guy he’s been in puppy love with for the past three months, it’s safe to say that Kankuro either rejected him, or even worse — ended up being straight.

“Honestly, he’s not even that good looking,” Suigetsu rants on, slurring his words and stumbling between them. “Like when you get real close up, he’s kinda ugly, isn’t he? Haha.”

“Sure, stupid.”

“Wish you’d figured that out three months ago.”

As if by telepathy, Sasuke and Karin have already started tuning him out, opting instead to focus on making steady progress toward Karin’s purple Jeep Wrangler. It’s parked about two more blocks up the street, and if all three of them can manage to get there before being tumbled over like bowling pins by the gravity of Suigetsu’s drunkenness, it will be nothing short of a miracle from the divine. Fuming, Sasuke silently swears to himself that this is the last time he’s going anywhere alcohol is involved with this idiot.

“I mean, sure his eyes are kinda pretty if you like hazel brown, almond-shaped eyes with little specks of gold in ‘em... and I guess his bone structure is really striking or whatever, but fuck him! Fuck Kankuro, and double-fuck that uppity blonde bitch he left with!”

“Bingo,” Sasuke mutters. The guy was straight after all. It comes as no surprise, considering how Suigetsu’s always falling for unsuspecting heteros.

“Hey!” Karin snaps, digging her elbow sharply into Suigetsu’s gut. “I don’t care how shitfaced you are — watch the misogyny, or you can walk home.”

Suigetsu yelps and croaks something unintelligible just before bending in half to empty the entire contents of his stomach in a putrid spray of vomit that just narrowly misses Sasuke’s shoes. Hollering an impressive stream of obscenities, Karin leaps back and thumps Suigetsu on the head. He wails on the ground in a puddle of his own puke, clutching his skull in agony and dry heaving simultaneously. It’s such a pathetic display that even Sasuke is able to muster up a tiny kernel of sympathy for his suffering.

“You’re gonna give him a concussion, Karin,” he sighs, crinkling his nose at the smell and helping Suigetsu up once he seems stable.

What a shitty, shitty night.

They’re finally moving again, this time in sobering silence. It’s not the pair’s first time forcefully escorting their brash, sharp-toothed friend from a party after he’s drunk himself into a raging stupor, but normally Jūgo and his muscles would be here to help. Without his brawn, it’s that much harder to keep Suigetsu from planting face-first into the pavement. As soon as the Jeep is within a few strides’ distance, Karin barks a command at him.

“Alright, dickwad. Get your pale, slippery ass in the car!”

The decibel level of Karin’s shouting makes Sasuke’s ears ring, but he’s too peeved about everything that’s gone so ridiculously wrong this night to be overly affected by this particular discomfort. Too annoyed, and still unbelievably sexually frustrated. The stench of Suigetsu’s vomit, however, seems to be helping in that regard. Thankfully, the drive out of the city flies by in a shapeless blur of trees and streetlights, and before long, they’re unceremoniously dumping Suigetsu onto the couch in the 2-bedroom apartment he shares with Jūgo. Back on the road, they drive with the back windows rolled down to air out the lingering odor.

When Karin finally pulls onto the Uchiha reservation with Sasuke in the passenger seat, it’s nearly four o’clock in the morning. His cheek is pressed against the cool glass of the window, and his tiredness is so bone-deep that he doesn’t register where they are even as Karin steers through the sleeping streets of the once-sprawling compound he grew up in. It’s like riding through a ghost town, except the ghosts here are practically family, and their haunting doesn’t really get in anybody’s way.

“Home sweet home,” Karin whispers, parking curbside and turning to her remaining passenger. She wilts over the console to rest her head on Sasuke’s shoulder.

“Finally,” Sasuke yawns.

“I know, right?”

“Thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime, Saucy-cakes.”

Sasuke grimaces at the silly pet name (more out of habit than true displeasure, at this point) but says nothing. They sit in comfortable silence for a moment, the flickering street lamp overhead throwing their faces into thoughtful relief every now and then.

“Oh yeah. Sas?” Karin says suddenly, her voice drowsy yet suspicious. “I almost forgot to ask — just what in the hell did you get up to tonight?”

Sasuke, sagging with his exhaustion, decides to feign ignorance. “Nothing much.”

“Bullshit,” she scoffs, seizing upon the blatant lie. “Your hands are wrapped up like a burn victim, your hair is an absolute mess, and whose clothes are you even wearing right now?”

Sasuke looks down at his gauze-padded hands while he selects his words carefully. “Oh, some idiot holding a few bottles slammed into me coming around a corner back there. It’s fine now, all the glass is out. I think wrangling Suigetsu earlier might’ve started the bleeding back up, though.”

“And what about the clothes?” Karin volleys, not missing a beat. “Your hair too... oh my god, is that a HICKEY on your neck?? _Sasuke_ — you fucking hooked up with someone, didn’t you!”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” he dodges, hoping the redhead can’t see how his face flushes warmly in the low light.

“I knew it, I knew it, I fucking knew it!” Karin shrieks and clutches his arm, suddenly energized. “So _that’s_ why you were upstairs when Sui started going feral on the furniture... tell me who it was right now, you sneaky little slut!”

“Die.”

“Fine, I’ll just guess!” Karin continues, undeterred by his firm refusal. Behind the frames of her glasses, her eyes gleam wickedly. “Was it one of your regulars? That shaggy jock who works with Jūgo down at the clinic, maybe... what’s his name... oh, it’s Kubo, right? Wait no, not him — it was that prick Neji again, wasn’t it?”

Bristling, Sasuke retorts, “First of all, you know damn well Neji would never be caught dead at a frat party. Second, I only hook up with _Kiba_ when I want to play with his dog, so he doesn’t even count. And third — shut up.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Karin muses, glossing right over his protests. “Akamaru is definitely the brains of that operation. So I guess it can’t be either of those two, then. Nah, it’s gotta be someone new, since you’re being all weird about it.”

“ _Shut up_ , Karin.”

It’s not that Sasuke doesn’t want to tell her about Naruto, per se. In his very sparse history of fooling around with strangers on occasion, he’s never had an issue disclosing a hook-up partner to any of his friends — especially given that half of them are reoccurring dalliances anyway. But something about this time just feels different. He doesn’t know why, but it does. Additionally, Sasuke thinks he would rather eat a pair of denim shorts than confess to dry-humping (with the very same terrorist who’d mauled his hands, no less) in the closet of a frat house like horny teenagers after bible study, “Dancing Queen” thumping distantly in the background.

Make that a 3-piece denim _suit_ , actually.

And okay, sure. It’s entirely possible that part of the reason Sasuke’s holding back is to maybe punish Karin just a teensy bit for interrupting his little romp so close to what he just knows would have been a stupidly good, if not messy, climax. But he’s not telling her that either.

“Alright, don’t say who, then,” Karin shrugs airily. “I’ll figure it out eventually — you know I always do.”

“Whatever, creep.”

Sasuke opens his door and climbs out. After he kicks it firmly shut — the passenger door always need to be manhandled a little to make the latch stick — Karin rolls down the window to toss out one last jibe.

“And to think I assumed you just stepped out for some air when instead, that whole time, you were getting dicked down by some varsity meathead!”

Sasuke flips her off with a chuckled, “Good night, Karin.”

She’s blowing him kisses as she drives off, her infectious laughter ringing madly through the somber twilight air before she guns the engine and roars out of sight — a riotous cacophony to send all the reservation’s curious and faceless ghosts scattering back into the shadows. Dead on his feet, Sasuke turns to the house he’s lived in all his life and trudges up the drive.

* * *

Locking the front door behind him with a heavy metal _snick_ , he fully intends on making a beeline for his room and flopping straight into bed, but across the open layout of the Uchiha home, he can see the back porch light is on. _Fucking hell_. There’s only one reason that light would be on at this hour. Moth-like, Sasuke is drawn over to its warm yellow glow spilling out across the floor. Stopping at the doorway, his stomach nosedives with dread as his suspicions are neatly confirmed.

“He’s out there pacing again,” Mikoto sighs, sensing her younger son’s presence at her back while minding the elder at her front. She’s sitting on the porch swing with a large, freshly-steaming mug of coffee held snug between her palms, peering out dully into the pitch black night. One slippered foot pushes against the ground and rocks the swing gently back and forth to pass the time. Blinking sleep out of her eyes, she turns and smiles warmly at him. “Welcome home, honey.”

Home sweet home.

All at once, Sasuke feels sick. “What happened? Did he have an episode while I was out?“

“Well... not exactly...” His mother shrugs, eyes troubled. “I’m not sure what’s got him riled up this time but he’s angry, alright. Nostrils flaring and fists ready to knock down anything that moves too fast — you know how he gets. How was the party? Come, sit.”

Mikoto scoots down to one end of the swing and pats the empty space beside her. Sasuke finally steps outside to claim his place beside her on the swaying bench. She’s cozily swaddled in her favorite robe, the thick fluffy periwinkle-blue one Sasuke had scrounged and saved to buy her in his sophomore year of high school; he’d even spent extra to have the Uchiha clan crest embroidered on the left breast pocket. Right over the heart. She fingers absently at it now with one hand.

“The party was stupid, Mom,” Sasuke says at last, dropping his head into his hands and scrubbing his face vigorously. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have stayed out so late, or even gone in the first place. I mean, I checked to make sure he took his meds before leaving... and he seemed fine earlier, but still—“

“Oh, hush. Your brother being sick doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to have a life,” she crows, leaning over to ruffle his hair.

Ruffling his hair, just like he’d ruffled Naruto’s in parting only hours before. Sasuke blushes, a little mortified to realize that this is probably where he learned the gesture from. Embarrassing.

“And what about you?” He asks, looking up to meet her fond gaze. “Aren’t you allowed to have a life too?”

Mikoto laughs and the sad, wistful timbre of it catches in Sasuke’s chest.

“Believe it or not, this is the life I want. Even after everything that’s happened. What we have here... you, me, and Itachi? This is it for me. I’m living, as long as I get to live for you two.”

“Mom...” Sasuke fumbles quietly, not knowing where to look.

She laughs again. “Do I even want to know the story behind the gauze on your hands?”

“No, I don’t think you do.”

Mikoto picks up one of the bandaged appendages in question, turning it this way and that. Finally, she clucks her tongue in the way that mothers do and kisses the back of his hand.

“Alright. I think you’d better get to bed.”

Sasuke doesn’t say or do anything for a moment, though. In the faintest shaft of moonlight, his eyes finally set upon the the rigid and agitated form of his older brother out in the fields. He looks like he’s speaking out loud, but from this distance, it‘s impossible to hear whatever he might be saying anyway. Suddenly, as if feeling Sasuke’s watchful eyes on him, Itachi’s wild, unfocused gaze snaps towards him and he’s not speaking anymore. The look probably doesn’t last as long as it feels like it does, but Sasuke shivers a little nonetheless. Then Itachi slips back out of view, his footsteps rustling unseen through the tall grass.

“I think I’ll keep you company for a bit,” Sasuke says, swallowing roughly.

Mikoto smiles at him. “We’ll be fine. I’m sure your bed misses you, not to speak of your precious fur babies.”

The idea of passing out in his bed surrounded by the sleeping, coiled bodies of his beloved cats is so painfully tempting right now that he could cry, but Sasuke manages to shove it down, ignore it for the present moment.

“I’m okay here,” he sighs.

“Yeah?” Mikoto yawns.

“Yeah.”

She kisses the corner of Sasuke’s temple. Leaning into each other, they watch as time slowly witches the moon away. The sun shakes itself out of hibernation and like a loyal hound, drags Itachi home with his collar between its teeth; him softened by morning dew, and the fog of that delirium clearing from his mind at last.

* * *

It’s the wet, warm, and slightly rough lapping of a small tongue at his chin that finally wakes Sasuke up well into Sunday afternoon. He doesn’t want to open his eyes just yet, but he doesn’t have to in order to know which one of his cats is the culprit. Shinji, silvery as a bolt of lightning, has tucked himself snug tight into Sasuke’s chest and is mewling softly into his ear now that he’s successfully coaxed him out of slumber. He’s the youngest and neediest of the Uchihas’ three felines, and fully takes advantage of that fact to seek attention whenever he wants it.

Sunlight pierces straight through the veil of Sasuke’s sealed lids, burning his retinas at a low flame. There’s a vicious pounding at his temple that can only be likened to having his skull struck repeatedly by a swinging ice pick, and it occurs to him that he has no memory of coming back inside or climbing into bed after falling asleep on the back porch last night. His throat feels like hell and his mouth smells even worse.

This is definitely, 100%, his last time ever drinking alcohol — for real this time.

“Shinji,” Sasuke croaks hoarsely, “Go get the shower running for Papa?”

Shinji lets out a long, offended _mrowww_ against his neck and only snuggles closer.

_Sounds about right. I don’t wanna get up either, brat._

He nuzzles into the warmth of Shinji’s fur for a final few moments of sweet, idle peace. Sadly, it doesn’t last long before his mind is bombarded by everything he has to get done today, hangover and all. Might as well get up now instead of making things harder for himself by laying in bed all day. Sasuke groans miserably when he checks his wristwatch to find its nearly one o’clock already. He slaps a still-gauzed hand to his forehead and it all comes rushing back in as his cuts from the night before twinge angrily in rebuttal. The party. The blonde. Broken glass bottles and a pair of tweezers. Getting blue-balled by Karin, and Suigetsu making an ass of himself in frat-boy territory.

He rolls over to grab his phone and the fresh water bottle he’d placed by the bed for his future self before leaving for the party. Sasuke empties the bottle in a few gulps as he scrolls through missed messages and notifications. There’s a migraine-inducing string of texts from Suigetsu gushing apologies for being a drunken bastard before it seamlessly transitions into him moping and whining about striking out with Kankuro. Besides that there’s a missed call from Jūgo, probably made on his lunch break to ask how their night went and make sure he’s okay. Kind, considerate, dependable Jūgo. Compared to the rest of their friend group, he might as well be a rose growing amongst weeds.

And speaking of weeds, there’s an entire day’s labor of chores to be done in the garden, which is always the case after they sell their homegrown produce at Saturday morning farmers’ market. Sasuke sighs deeply and finally pulls himself out of bed to get moving, his head pounding with every step. Shinji mewls in protest at the abrupt abandonment of comfort and leisure, but then hurries to trot after Sasuke grumpily when he sees him disappear into the bathroom.

* * *

They call it “the garden”, but it’s really more of a farm that stretches across roughly four acres of open fields towards the back of the Uchiha compound. It’s further divided into sections by the types of crops they grow. Currently, the Uchiha reservation’s farmland supports a large vegetable patch, a fruit orchard, a greenhouse for the flowers, and a small spice-and-herb garden. There’s even a corner for the meager amount of livestock they have (cows, chickens, horses, a handful of goats and pigs). The newest addition to the farm, set up in the last three years, is a large cabin devoted to indoor hydroponics for the plants they’ve decided to keep growing outside of their season.

Sasuke spends a better part of the remaining daylight working the ground, along with several other clan members stationed in different sections. Shinji has retreated to the back porch steps, lazily basking in sunlight while the other two cats appoint themselves as Sasuke’s little helpers. Yuzu is a blonde bolt of fuzz flashing between his legs, dropping offerings of dead mice at his feet hourly, or sometimes just swiping a claw at his ankles before hissing and ghosting away again. Her older sister Oni pads along dutifully at Sasuke’s side, pulling up the weeds he points out and batting away crop-killing insects when she sees them. Somehow, her immaculate, mostly white fur is never tainted or smudged by the black soil, but that’s just Oni for you. The sky is nearly dark by the time Sasuke decides to call it a day, dropping into a squat beside her.

He takes off his gloves to examine his palms, the wounds having been cleaned, treated, and re-wrapped in gauze by Izumi earlier when she came over to bring Mikoto a selection of the first batch of persimmons their side of the orchard has started growing. He‘s pleasantly surprised to see the deeper cuts haven’t been disturbed by all the intensive yard work he’s done with his hands so far. Reaching into a pocket, he fishes out a packet of dried sardines and dumps them into one cupped palm that Oni leans in to nibble out of.

“You deserve it, girl. Good hustle today,” Sasuke praises, rubbing softly at her downturned head.

Oni, who despises being babied or patronized, gives Sasuke a stormy look and nips his thumb in warning. He laughs, but lets her finish in peace before straightening up to dust himself off and head inside. After his shower, he makes his way to the kitchen, hair still wet and his stomach doing it’s best to eat itself alive. His mother’s crooning an old song quietly to herself over the sink and Sasuke wants to go kiss her cheek in greeting. However, he freezes just inside the door’s threshold, vision arrested by that... _thing_ sitting smack in the middle of the island countertop.

“You did _not_ make a cake for this,” he blurts, bashful now.

”Oh, but I did... I made a whole, entire cake.”

“ _Mom_...” Sasuke groans loudly, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Yes, my sweet and beautiful darling boy?” Mikoto sings, floating around the kitchen.

“What for?” Sasuke sighs, “It’s really not that big of a deal.”

His mother spins around to glare at him in mock anger. “ _What for?_ Sasuke, you may not think it’s a big deal that you’re finally going away to university, but I beg to differ!”

It’s the Sunday evening before classes start for the semester. The last few hours of normalcy before Sasuke’s quiet, familiar life on the Uchiha reservation is turned inside out by him transferring to Konoha’s big city college from the community education center he’s attended for the last two and a half years. Well — it was supposed to be normal, anyway.

“I’m not even _‘going away’_. I’ll still be living right here,” Sasuke huffs, crossing his arms.

“Oh, you know what I mean — look, I got sparklers for the cake too!” Mikoto buzzes gleefully. “Now where did I put those matches...”

“And it’s not even like I won the scholarship for doing anything spectacular,” Sasuke grumbles on, ignoring his mother’s excitement. “Doesn’t it bother you that this whole thing’s just a pity prize? It’s just a PR stunt to make the council look good. They’re using us poor, downtrodden Uchihas to clean up their bad reputation and impress everyone so much with their generosity that nobody will even remember it was the council who screwed us over in the first damn place.”

This, at last, makes his mother falter. She swivels away from the counter, eyes blazing, and cups her son’s face firmly in her hands.

“Listen here, boy of mine,” Mikoto intones, narrowing her bottomless obsidian eyes keenly at his identical ones, “Whine all you want — you are not going to ruin this moment for me, and I _refuse_ to let you ruin it for yourself. Now if the council wants to use us for cheap charity points to boost their public image, then so be it. They owe us _at least_ that much for everything we lost. There’s a time and a place to be a revolutionary, Sasuke. Right now, I don’t give a damn how they package our reparations if it means my children get to live the lives they want without obstacle, got it?”

Sasuke looks off to one side, nods wordlessly.

“Yeah, fuck those guys.”

Mother and son turn to find Itachi watching them from the doorway, the faint ghost of a grin stretching across his face. It’s a rare thing. Immediately, they can both see that he‘s better than he was last night. The dark circles under his eyes from sleep deprivation are all but permanent now, but any lingering trace of the anxiety and low-simmering rage that overtook him last night is nowhere to be seen now. He looks like he’s come back to himself — for the time being, anyway.

“Exactly! Thank you, Itachi.” Mikoto’s face is more gentle when she brings her attention back to Sasuke.

“Look,” she begins, voice fiery and her eyes not quite wet, but getting there all the same (which makes Sasuke feel rotten for dampening her cheer). “This family, our people have suffered enough. I know how much you hate the idea of taking something you feel you haven’t earned but you _deserve_ this. We all do. Not everything has to be won through hardship — sometimes life just gives you the lemonade.”

Sasuke isn’t ready for how acutely his mother’s words pierce through his armor. He suddenly feels very small then, and Mikoto’s warm assurances are met with a breath of silence because it takes him a moment to sieve the weakness out of his voice before he can speak again.

“Doesn’t make it easier to swallow,” Sasuke whispers at last.

“I know, baby,” she returns softly, pressing a kiss to his forehead before stepping away. “This is going to be good though, I promise.”

Itachi properly enters the room to grab himself a glass of water while Mikoto goes back to her waltzing, gliding from countertop to stove to cabinets to oven, and then all over again. It’s been a long time since he’s seen her spirits this high, Sasuke thinks. Every time she passes either son, their mother plants a kiss on a cheek or affectionately bumps a shoulder, a treatment which they both dutifully endure. Mikoto is a tornado of endless activity and Sasuke starts to feel dizzy just watching her until he registers that this isn’t just some modest ‘celebratory cake’ affair — his mother is also cooking one hell of a meal, from the looks of it. There are huge pots on each of the stove’s four burners, blue gas flames flickering happily beneath them.

“Wait a minute,” Sasuke stops, brows furrowed in confusion. “What’s going on here?”

Making eye contact with their mother — who suddenly has a mischievous glint in her eye — over the rim of his glass, Itachi says to her, “I believe it’s time, mother.”

“Time for what?” Sasuke demands, looking back and forth between the pair suspiciously.

Mikoto beams at them both and responds, “Itachi, I think you’re quite correct — it’s time!”

Oh, how lovely. He’s being completely ignored.

Fuming at being left out of the secret of this big, mysterious, special-dinner-worthy _something_ that’s suddenly taking place right here and right now, Sasuke huffs and opens his mouth to protest heatedly — just as the pantry doors on the other side of the kitchen fly open with a skull-rattling _bang!_ and out tumbles a jumbled mass of balloons, streamers, and squirming human flesh.

“SURPRISE!!!” Karin, Jūgo, and Suigetsu yell up at him from where they’re piled on the hardwood floor, Mikoto and Itachi’s voices chiming in as well.

Sasuke freezes in momentary shock, and then he feels his face flush as he realizes this is some kind of party. A party for _him_ , no less.

“What... how did...” he breaks off, speechless for the second time this night.

Karin is the first to untangle herself and she crosses the room to throw her arms around Sasuke’s neck, pulling him close. There’s glitter in her hair and she smells like buttercream icing. “We’re so fucking happy for you,” she whispers in his ear, and he can tell exactly how hard she’s smiling just by the way it shapes the emotion in her voice and smushes her cheek up against his.

“Karin...” he mumbles, touched but not quite sure what to say.

Looking much more sober than he did less than 24 hours ago, Suigetsu straightens up next and pries Karin off to hug Sasuke even tighter, earning a withering glare from the redhead and a flustered eye roll from the still-bewildered Uchiha he’s curled himself around like a viper. He pulls back, grinning at Sasuke, and says “C’mon, you had to know we couldn’t let this semester start without throwing you a goin’-away party. Serves you right for breaking up the band!”

Sasuke scowls, exasperated, and mutters, “I’m not even _going_ anywhere. You guys are still gonna see me literally all the time.”

“We know, Sasuke,” a soothing voice agrees. Jūgo moves in to amiably drape an arm across his shoulders. “It’s just the principle of the thing.” He smiles with warmth at his raven-haired friend, always more from his eyes than his lips somehow.

“And since when do you knuckleheads have principles?” Sasuke jabs, still blushing furiously.

“Dinner’s ready!” Mikoto announces from the stove. “Now that the gang’s all here, everybody grab a plate. First we feast, and then we cut the cake!”

His friends make a beeline for the pots of steaming food with whoops of “Yeah!” and “You’re the best Mrs. Uchiha!”

In their absence from Sasuke’s side, Itachi sidles up and leans against the counter beside him. To Sasuke’s annoyance, he looks thoroughly entertained at the way all this has played out.

“You think they came just for the food?” Itachi muses idly, watching his baby brother’s profile.

“Traitor.”

Itachi chuckles, tickled by Sasuke’s disapproval.

Right now, he seems to have done what Sasuke likes to think of as ‘flipping the switch’ — this practiced and at most times, totally convincing veneer of warmth and friendliness that he dons out of consideration for the people around him. It’s the most striking change in Itachi since he started receiving proper treatment after his diagnosis; he’s more vigilant about watching his demeanor than he ever was before. The little switch in his head that stays ‘on’ for people whose brains are wired properly, Itachi was born with it in the ‘off’ position. But he can flip back and forth at will, and currently Sasuke can tell the switch is flipped on.

It’s hard work for Itachi, having to constantly be aware of how his perceived mood and body language can drop the temperature of a room down to freezing, even when he’s feeling perfectly calm and content on the inside. Sasuke has never heard his brother complain about having to do this, but he can read him better than anyone else, so it’s easy to spot how much it exhausts him just by how quickly the tension seeps out of Itachi’s body once he deems it appropriate to drop the act. Most days he doesn’t even bother ‘flipping the switch’ when only Mikoto, Sasuke, or close clan members are around, since they’re all used to how frigid it can feel being around him when he’s ‘off’.

Knowing that Itachi has probably flipped that switch on because they’ve got company over and everyone has already decided this is a very special occasion, it doesn’t take long for Sasuke to regret being short with him. He relaxes a bit, watching his bonehead friends stuff their faces as Mikoto fusses over them affectionately.

“How long have you guys been planning this?” Sasuke sighs, fixing Itachi in place with a _look_.

“Oh, just since you got the admission letter,” Itachi responds breezily.

“So basically all summer.” Sasuke’s frowning again.

“Yep.”

Sasuke pinches at the space between his brows. “You guys are _so_ dramatic.”

Now this gets a proper laugh out of his brother.

“Look who’s talking,” Itachi flings back at him. “Remind me again, who’s nickname was Little Prince as a child because he would throw the biggest fit if something didn’t go his way?”

“No fucking way!!” Suigetsu exclaims from the table, his words somehow still making it out far enough to be intelligible despite his mouth being filled to capacity with rice, meat, and vegetables.

“You dick,” Sasuke fumes, his glare at Itachi intensifying.

“Sasuke — watch your mouth.” Mikoto scolds, though her eyes are still smiling.

“You didn’t say anything when _he_ cursed!” Sasuke protests and gestures at Suigetsu, who cracks a messy-toothed grin and pokes his tongue out mockingly.

“Oh hush,” his mother laughs, turning back to the stove. “Stop being a party pooper and sit down. I’ll fix you a plate, my little princeling.”

“Yeah, calm down, _Your Highness_ ,” Karin blurts, just barely holding back a peal of laughter.

“You’re all dead to me.”

Karin, Suigetsu, and Jūgo have become quite desensitized to being regularly disowned like this by their unspoken leader by now. The words are no more than an empty threat because somehow, Sasuke is the glue that holds them together — they’re all firmly stuck onto him now, and he couldn’t get rid of them that easily even if he really wanted to. The three of them only laugh and shuffle in their seats, making sure there’s enough room for everyone to be seated.

Once Sasuke and Itachi are settled in, Mikoto puts down a heavy tray of dishes in front of them. Despite having turned 21 only a few months ago, it might as well be his birthday all over again, because what’s on the menu are some of his favorite dishes, all of them featuring fresh spices, herbs, and vegetables from the garden:

The sunomono salad of tomatoes, cucumber, and mizuna leaves, topped with a sweet sesame wasabi sauce Mikoto makes from scratch.

The ginger-miso stir fry with lotus root and salmon, always served beside a mound of steaming white rice.

And of course, tomato beef nikujaga boiled with a colorful array of veggies in sake and dashi soup base.

It’s way more than he would normally eat in one sitting, but due to his hangover making him slightly nauseous all day, his stomach is painfully empty right now. Thinking about how he can probably take the leftovers to school in a bento for this entire coming week, Sasuke is forcefully struck by a sharp pang of gratitude; first for his mother, and then everyone else that conspired to make this little party possible. His eyes sweep over all the smiling faces, and picking up his chopsticks, he thinks quietly to himself:

_Maybe it’s not the worst feeling in the world to be surrounded by people who make a habit of celebrating_ everything _. Who care enough to make even the small, ordinary things feel important and extraordinary._

The cats weave in and out of their legs under the table, prowling for scraps in hungry circles. There’s cake, dango, and even a bottle or three of wine being passed around. Glasses clink to the delivery of silly toasts and well wishes, and everything is fine. Very, very fine.

* * *

Miles away, deep into the night, a construction company from Otogakure arrives in Konoha and begins preparing a plot of a land to be worked on. Drill rigs, bulldozers, water trucks, and other heavy equipment are stealthily transported to the site as land is leveled and the new construction project is erected overnight. Dawn is just creeping in when the project’s lead contractor and commissioner of OtoEnergy, Inc. pulls into the lot and slinks confidently out of a spotless black Mercedes coupe, surveying his workers’ progress. Behind his silver frames, calculating eyes sweep carefully, missing nothing.

His name is Kabuto Yakushi, and in his hand is a copy of the legal contract he signed to close the deal on this construction project. The other signature on this document belongs to a man of great influence who goes by the name of Orochimaru — founder and president of the Sound village. And the plot of land they’re currently laying claim over just happens to fall primarily under Uchiha reservation territory.

Sunlight detonates over the horizon in a fiery molten explosion — silent, deadly, and portentous. An omen, perhaps, of the beginning of something truly awful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhhh it’s finally here! i worked on this chapter for a stupidly long time lol. leave comments and kudos if you liked this and are curious to see where the story’s gonna go! <3
> 
> (i clown around on twitter and make dumb jokes about sns! follow me @sasuke_coon if you wanna laugh or just motivate me to write this next chapter hehe)


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